I’ll start by saying that I’m not receiving any endorsements, payments, freebies, kickbacks, etc, for this post. You can rest assured that what follows is my un-biased opinion and findings.
How this started:
I was recently in the market for some cordless power-tools, it’d been a while since I’d been tool-shopping and I soon realised that I had some serious catching up to do. The world of cordless power-tools is, to say the least, overwhelming! There is some excellent money to be made (by the tool companies that is; not you!) and as such there is some really slick marketing and reality bending jargon to be found in this space. As a result; there’s ample opportunity for a wide gulf to open up between what you set out to buy and what you actually buy. Which can leave a smoldering hole in your bank-balance.
Luckily, I was not necessarily in a hurry to buy my cordless power tools, which gave me time to research and work through the jungle of marketing and outlandish reviews and claims. Below, in no particular order, are a number of facts and considerations that will be of use if you’re in the market for cordless power tools:
Do you even need cordless power-tools?
This is the first question you should ask. Cordless power tools cost, on average, two to three times as much as their corded equivalents. So carefully consider how much you want to pay to be free of the tangle of extension cords. The sales pitches will play pretty hard on the convenience of cordlessness, but they tend to gloss over the need to charge batteries. This requirement for charging is, in effect, a preparatory or daily maintenance activity that cannot be skipped. If you do forget; your weekend project may turn into a Sunday project. Or worse still your livelihood/earning may be on hold for a day. There are, of course, various fast-chargers available, but you will pay a premium for them.
Are you ready for the commitment?
When you buy cordless tools the sales-pitches all extoll the virtues of battery interchangeability. However; the flip-side to this pitch is that you are locked in to a brand once you start with it. The idea of running multiple brands of cordless power-tools and respective fleets of batteries and chargers will get old really fast when you see how much batteries and chargers cost.
All cordless power tool producers will offer a range of ‘combo-kits’ these are the cheapest option, per unit, to purchase cordless power-tools, batteries and chargers. But once you buy-in you are effectively married to that brand. Infidelity and/or re-marriage is going to be expensive!
Supposing you are ready for, and unafraid of, that commitment; the next question is: How much to buy? I recommend you figure out a list of tools and a number batteries you want BEFORE you start looking at combo-kits, otherwise the 4-6 tools you need will quickly become the 8-10 tool you want because you’ll be saving money by buying them. Right? … sound familiar?
Home use Vs Commercial use.
Do you want to use the tools for around your house or are you a tradesmen / contractor using them every day for your work? There are tools that are pitched at each of these markets; they are priced accordingly and there are warranty implications.
Brands like Ryobi and Ozito are much cheaper but are not made to be used all day every day, if you are earning money with these tools they may let you down, and you are unlikely to be covered by their warranty for this type of work. This is not to say that they are bad brands, they are just made for a specific rate of effort. Calling them poor brands is unfair in my opinion, and is akin to saying that your family station wagon is a poor rally-car. Of course, it is! But it’s a perfectly good family station wagon!
That being said, you may, rightly or wrongly, be judged based on which brand you buy. And I would certainly prefer not be seen with an in-expensive home-use brand at a job-site, lest other’s opinions be formed regarding whether I’m a professional or a cowboy. But conversely, there are more than a few overly brand-conscious home-owners who’ve invested large sums of money in commercial grade power tools that sit in the garage and get used around the house once in a blue-moon.
Warranties.
As mentioned above, warranties vary; but also be aware that the Australian Consumer Laws state that a product must be ‘reasonably durable.’ Exactly how long reasonably durable is will be up for discussion, if you make a claim outside of warranty and enact the ACL.
What this means for me, is that I don’t really consider a warranty to be a selling point (that is: something I’m willing to pay extra for) until it is at or above 5 years in length. Often for a warranty of this length some form of tool registration will be necessary.
The ACL also states that you should be able to return your item to the point of sale, this can be particularly difficult, expensive or time consuming for tools purchased online, compared to returning tools to your local retail outlet. Further; whilst in theory the ACL affects all stores equally, in practice, some retailers are much easier to deal with than others. I’ve heard good things about Bunnings in this regard.
Power garden tools
If you’re also considering cordless power garden tools, there are potentially some efficiencies to be made. For example: a cordless chainsaw or brush-cuter that displaces a petrol-powered equivalent offers immediate cost savings. Plus if you’ve already bought into a cordless power tool range and have the batteries and chargers, then your marginal cost of buy-in to that brand’s power garden tool range is lower.
BUT (there’s always a but) power garden tools have much lower endurance than their petrol predecessors. For example; if you already have a shed full of Makita cordless power-tools, when it comes time to buy a chainsaw for occasional use around the house, getting a Makita cordless chainsaw will certainly be a good deal, as it negates ongoing petrol costs. But if you’re a contractor; most cordless electric power garden tools just aren’t going to have the endurance for a day’s work, and the number of batteries you’d require to make them go all day could be prohibitive.
Another issue with cordless power garden tools is torque, or more correctly the lack thereof. You’ll often find that tool makers have a secondary range of tools at higher voltages in order to bridge this gap, but since a different range of batteries, and associated chargers, are required the interoperability benefits go out the window. Don’t let brand loyalty influence your decision making if this is the case.
A few ways to work around this, to an extent, are:
- the use of brands that offer flexible voltage batteries. At the time of writing the only brands embracing this are DeWalt and Hikoki which have 18/54 and 18/36 volt battery options;
- using an 18 volt battery on your power garden tool with the largest possible number of amp-hours. Although, strictly speaking, more amp/hours means more endurance, there is also a certain degree of power output boost compared to batteries of lesser amp-hours; and
- the use of power tools that use 2x separate18 volt batteries to run 36 volt motors, thereby preserving battery commonality. Makita has a wide range of tools in this category, other brands have a smattering.
Who owns the company? And how this may affect you.
About four parent companies own about half of all power tool brands. This generally won’t be a problem, however; there are a few, albeit very unlikely, potential pitfalls for you to be aware of:
- There are instances where a parent company will discontinue one of its various brands in order to end competition between them, this generally happens after a buy-out or take-over. If this happens you may be caught high and dry with a cordless power-tool brand that is discontinued, meaning you need to start all over again with another brand and the associated battery and charger costs. In short; if you see cordless power tools at a bargain price, check that they’re not a discontinued brand.
- Some power tool brands are marketed toward very niche markets in order to increase the parent company’s overall market share (just like gendered marketing). If you unknowingly buy into a brand that’s focused on the vehicle repair/mechanical market, for example, you will be fine at first when you buy a drill, grinder, impact wrench, work-light and sander combo, but a year later when you want a rotary hammer, belt sander and/or nail-gun you’ll find out that they’re not in that brand’s range. The take-home message here is that you should check that the brand you choose has a sufficient range of tools available to meet your possible future needs.
Click to enlarge
If you want to avoid the above, admittedly unlikely, pitfalls you can either stick to brands with a wide range of cordless power-tools; and/or stick to brands that carry the name of the parent company, and are thereby unlikely to be discontinued. Such as Makita, Bosch, Hilti, Hitachi/Hikoki
The above advice is, however; only really pertinent to tradesmen / contractor grade tools/brands. If you are looking for a cheaper, home-use brand you will invariably be buying a subsidiary brand. Still, do your research and pick a brand that has a big range and is pitched at a broad market.
Brushless or brushed?
Brushless motors are pretty much the new standard in cordless power tools. They have less internal friction, and thereby resistance, in their motors which means more power and endurance. How much more? Approximately 30%.
You will of course have to pay more for brushless tools, or to be more precise the older ‘brushed’ tools are effectively run-out models so they’re cheaper. At the time of writing, approximately only 10 – 25% of the cordless tools on the marked are the older brushed types. If you are buying for home use and you really don’t think you need the additional power and endurance you can potentially bag yourself a bargain by buying brushed tools. Conversely, there is the danger that you assume everything is brushless (and it’s now become sufficiently common that retailers don’t always emphasize whether or not tools are brushless when they advertise) you may purchase some very reasonably priced cordless power tools, assuming that they’re brushless, when they’re not.
YouTube / Internet / Reviews
There is plenty of info on YouTube and internet pages about cordless power tools, but it all needs to be taken with a grain of salt. A lot of the YouTube content is more sponsored entertainment than anything else. It’s pretty difficult to compare power tools effectively when there are just so many variables including: price, service, warranty, and so on, that you can’t necessarily articulate in a video where someone lines up ten different brands of power-tool, uses them to a point of failure and then ranks them. The better internet sites and YouTubers will acknowledge the inherent subjectivity of their comparisons, while others will reach apparently definitive conclusions that one brand is superior to another. Always look into who a website or YouTube channel is affiliated with or sponsored by. But have fun too! I, for one, am not too sophisticated to enjoy some mind-in-neutral power tool fluff!
Regarding reviews, they’re either written by someone with an axe to grind because they had a bad experience or they’re written by someone who’s very happy with their purchase. The former should only hold value if there are a larger number of similar complaints, and the latter, positive reviews, tend to fit into one of two categories: Someone who has just purchased, and not fully tested their tools, and may still be under the influence of some un-boxing euphoria at the time of reviewing. The second category of positive review makes me kind of suspicious; those who are very happy with their purchase and have tested their tools thoroughly over a long period,… But let’s be honest, who’s ever felt the need to write a positive review for something 12 months after they purchased it?
Aftermarket battery adaptors
One solution to the whole problem of having to maintain brand, commonality for battery interoperability is to make use of battery adaptors. Each adaptor will enable you to fit a certain brand battery to a certain brand of cordless tool of the same voltage.
As these are after-market modifications, so to speak, you will only find them for sale on the internet. They are relatively inexpensive ($20-30 per unit) which is nothing considering the savings you could make on buying a whole new fleet of batteries.
I won’t pretend to be an authority on the safety or otherwise of the adaptors, they are in principle a very simple device and theoretically safe. But I’m sure the purists would feel differently about the matter. I haven’t read anything in any warranty documents specifically barring their use, but I haven’t read every warranty document out there either. They will make the cordless power-tool a little more bulky, which may become an issue if you work in tight spaces. Also some power-tools (like vacuums and reciprocating saws) won’t fit battery adaptors, due to the positioning of their battery ports, hence why all demo pictures have examples where the battery port is unencumbered by other parts of the tool.
Aftermarket batteries
They are available for all major brands and they’re about half the price of genuine batteries. Again, you’ll only find them online. Having not used these myself the best I can do is rely to my own internet/YouTube research. Where there are a number of different individuals who’ve compared the performance of genuine batteries and their unbranded/knock-off equivalents, as well as taking them apart and compared their internals.
A gross generalization of the outcomes is: Unbranded/knock-off batteries are 50% of the price of the genuine articles, and have 80% of the performance. There is also a, difficult to quantify, risk of tool damage/warranty voiding. It’ll be up to you to decide on this one. I gave it a miss.
Second hand tools?
Unless you are buying your tools to be used once in a blue moon; I’d recommend you just don’t go here. With second hand tools and batteries you have no idea how they’ve been treated and you have no consumer protection, they are quite possibly stolen or completely burned out.
And what brand did I buy?
Makita! Why? you ask. Well here are the needs and values that influenced my decision:
- I wanted a brand with a good warranty on both the tools and the batteries: The leaders were Hilti, Makita, Bosch Blue and AEG. Of particular note: Bosch Blue offers 6 years on batteries and Hilti offers 20+ years! but at a price.
- I wanted a brand that offered combo kits with a large number of batteries: the leaders were Makita, Bosch Blue and Metabo.
- I wanted a brand that was unlikely to be discontinued by it’s parent company: Makita, Bosch Blue, Hitachi/Hikoki and Hilti are the safest options here.
- I wanted a brand with a very large range of cordless power tools: Makita takes honours by a country mile! Makita could also provide a range of 36V variants of their tools (using 2x 18V batteries) for when more power is needed. Plus Makita had a substantial range of power garden tools, and again they’re available in 18V & 36V variants.
Who just missed out, and what were the deal breakers:
Bosch Blue – This was actually my preferred brand for 18V power tools and I came very close to choosing them. Plus their larger combo kits are also available through Bunnings (who I like dealing with). But the problem was that they didn’t have a serious power-garden range. (There are only power-garden tools with Bosch Green, Bosch’s home user/light duty range, which has a different battery platform). Further; if I need higher voltage I’d need another battery/platform all together form Bosch Blue.
I gave serious consideration to running two separate brands for power tools and power-garden tools so that I could go with Bosch Blue 18V tools and use another brand for power-garden tools. The lead contenders were: AEG (58V), Makita (36V) and Husqvarna (36V). I looked at a lot of options and there was some serious spreadsheet-work done, which I’ll spare you from (unless you really want to see it); however, at the end of the day having just one fleet of batteries was more economical in terms of both time and money, as well as being more convenient and easier to manage.
Milwaukie and DeWalt – These brands both have a huge range of tools and were consistently the most powerful tools in online comparisons, but this power came at the expense of battery life. Also; there were few too many stories of DeWalt tools dying-young for me to ignore. Perhaps this is unfair (or overly cautious) of me but reputation, among other things, was one of my considerations.
Milwaukie, Dewalt, Hilti & Hikoki – Were less generous with batteries and chargers in their combo kits, which ultimately made them a more expensive undertaking.
Finally; I was a little put off by brands that had ‘premium‘ battery ranges (like Milwaukie ‘Fuel’ and AEG ‘Force’) Why the hell can’t they just make their best battery their standard battery?
I hope this has been useful for you. If you think I’m terribly wrong about anything please email me and let me know; I imagine I’ll be doing this all again in about 2030 so I’m happy to learn more. 😉